Despite Files – Connecticut School Shooter Remains Enigma

(AP) — Connecticut state police have released of thousands of pages of interviews, photographs and writings about the man who gunned down 20 first-graders and six adults at Newtown's Sandy Hook Elementary School last year.

But the gunman, Adam Lanza, remains an enigma.

Some of the most tantalizing evidence of the inner workings of the 20-year-old Newtown man's brain appears to be contained in writings that the police chose not to release.

What the files do show is a deeply troubled young man, living with a single mother who was either unable or unwilling to accept the depths of his illness.

By the time of the massacre, he had taped black garbage bags over his bedroom windows and retreated into a world of violent video games, guns and statistics on mass murder.

The documents also suggest the gunman's mother was a dedicated and loving parent, but at times bewildered by her son. Nancy Lanza told a lifelong friend about two weeks before the massacre her son was becoming increasingly despondent and hadn't left his room in three months. The documents say Hurricane Sandy had cut power to the Lanza home in late October and that had "put Adam over the edge."

Adam Lanza fatally shot his mother in the head before carrying out his rampage at the school.